The Life of a Mouse A short story by Matthew
“Where the heck am I?� I pondered this question as I creeped in pitch black darkness. All of a sudden there was a deafening BOOM! Part of the carpet came down as if something were pressing it down from above.
That was one of the most terrifying events in my life. If you cannot not relate to what was going on then you better listen up and hear me out. First of all, I am a ten year old mouse named Luke and I was out getting food for my family. In my family there is Dan my little brother, Amy my baby sister and my parents. Secondly we always resort to the human kitchen for our food. But the kitchen was across from our mouse hole and if we went out in the open we would be caught. So going under the carpet was our best chance of survival and it was now my turn for the first time to raid the fridge, so I was under the carpet just now.
The deafening “BOOMS” got louder and the carpet got pushed down closer to me. Only then did I realize the humans had spotted me, I ran for my dear life when all of a sudden I got to the end of the carpet, the blackness no longer surrounded me and I got blinded by the sudden white bright lights. It took a while to adjust to the bright lights, but when I did I ended up staring up at a human with a chair hovering over his head. “Uh Oh!” I rolled to the side but, my tail didn’t make it. “Owwww” I screamed, tears rolled down my cheeks but the pain made me want to go faster, it made me want to scamper until I got home to my mouse hole and jump into bed and mourn for my tail. I ran as fast as I could. I ran so fast that I ran right through the doorway of my house and I bumped my head into the wall.
After that I didn't know what happened but when I woke up I was in my bed with everybody in my family surrounding me. Dan was the first to notice my awakening “He’s awake” he cried and hugged me “Oh Luke I’m so glad you’re still alive”. I heard crying, It was coming from Amy. “Oh I’ll get it” my mom said as she rushed over to my baby sister.
My father said “Oh Luke thank god you are alive!” I sat up. “We were so worried about you, we almost thought you were dead!” I stood up and looked at where my tail would have been, in its place was a small white bandage. I took it off, the wound had nearly completely healed but it was still very sore. “Youch!” my brother said “That must have hurt real bad.” “Luke!” my mom said sternly, “From now on you are to never leave the mouse hole without me or your father” “But why?” I asked. “It’s for your own safety, just look at yourself.” she cried. I looked down ashamed. I couldn’t believe it, the thing that I treasured the most was gone forever.
The next day I woke up really early, I looked around “Hmmm” I said to myself “Maybe I should get some breakfast for us.” I creeped out of our house, then scampered across all the way to the kitchen. This time I didn’t bother to think about going underneath the carpet, if I lost my tail because of that why should I try it again? I creeped out of our house, then scampered across all the way to the kitchen. This time I didn’t bother to think about going underneath the carpet, if I lost my tail because of that why should I try it again? I reached the kitchen door, I could smell it, the cheese was close. I slid through the door and gasped. The fridge was left wide open! I ran right into it, but jeez it was cold! I shivered as I ran right into it. Us, mice don’t really climb so this was the first time I was climbing a wall. I could see the cheese on the top shelf which was the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest for mice. I used my small nails to grip on. “Well theres always a first time for everything” I said to myself. I was confident. This wasn’t just for myself, I was doing it for my family to prove myself to them, oh and I was also doing it for the glory of the cheese.
I climbed and climbed and climbed, the walls inside of the fridge were cold and slippery. Whoa, I adapted to climbing the freezing walls but that part was especially cold. I regained my grip and continued climbing. I was almost there I could nearly see the top where. I pushed myself and raced all the way up. My heartbeat raced, an I pulled myself up. I had done it, I had reached the cheese! But now all I had to do was get it all the way down from here. Now I started to think if it was that hard to get up to the top, how would I get back down to the bottom with the cheese.
All of a sudden I heard a very distinct noise, it went thump, thump, thump, thump. Just then I saw it, it was a little human! I creeped over the edge of the fridge. Why its only a baby human! He couldn’t hurt me surely, anyway he can’ t even reach me! Now there is something about baby humans that every mouse knows. Big humans always follow baby humans. I had to get out of here and my time was running out.
I came up with a plan, it was dangerous and risky but it was my only chance. I grabbed a leaf of lettuce and dragged it back to the cheese where I made my plan come to life with my invention. Once when I was younger and outside of the human house in the big wide world. I saw some humans watching other humans fall from the sky.
They fell from the sky from another invention that they called a ‘plane’ and when they fell they released what they called a ‘parachute’ . They slowly fell and landed safely to the ground . My invention was to copy this so I designed my own ‘parachute’ it would be made of lettuce and would hopefully slow my descent to the ground with my cheese safely stored. I pushed the cheese towards the edge of the fridge, then jumped on top and I shuffled with my feet then made a leap of faith.
“Ahh!” I, Luke Fatarsky was falling from the top of the fridge with only a makeshift lettuce parachute ever invented.This had never been attempted before. Oh I forgot I also had a wedge of cheese between my feet. The cheese wasn’t that heavy though and it was easy to hold because of the swiss cheese holes. Throughout the flight the human baby stared at me in amazement. He stared for a long time. I tried to say Hi, but all the human heard was “Squeak”. His reply was “Nyah wah” and crawled away. Eventually I slowly landed near the door of the kitchen. I was amazed that I had done that and It felt great to be on solid ground again. Now I had to get inside before the adult humans arrived. It took me a while to get the cheese and lettuce inside the mouse hole but I managed eventually.
By the time I got it in and had a little snack Dan had woken up. He asked me how I had gotten cheese and lettuce into the house and I explained everything that happened. After he ate mom and dad woke up to find some strange things, firstly there was a giant wedge of cheese and a big leaf of lettuce in the living room. Secondly Dan and Luke were chatting to each other as if it was normal to have cheese and lettuce in the living room. “Whats going on? Why is there cheese and lettuce in the living room?” “Oh hi mom... um I went outside of the hole and went to the human fridge” I said casually. “Did you just say you went to the fridge” Mrs.Fatarsky turned pale then fainted.
On the other hand Mr.Fatarsky could hardly contain himself, “ Who would of ever guessed our little Luke would ever raid a fridge! I’m so proud of you!, tell me about this ‘parachute’ once again” Eventually Mrs.Fatarsky woke up again but this time she didn’t faint, “I guess you have earned your freedom Luke, from now on you can go out of the hole by yourself but please tell someone first” “Thank you mom!” I said proudly. From then on the Fatarsky family never went hungry at any point because Luke became the “adventure-mouse” who could get food from anywhere. He was able to get so much that the Fatarsky family had enough to be well fed for a long time to come! By:Matthew